


First Breath

by lferion



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Challenge Response, Community: fan_flashworks, Double Drabble, Drabble, Gen, Introspection, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9496556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: Revival is never easy





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go to Zana, Morgynleri & Icka for encouragement & sanity-checking.
> 
> Originally posted [here](https://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/499795.html) on Fan Flashworks for Amnesty 25, prompt 'Elusive or Ephemeral.'

The first breath of air was agony. It was always agony, no matter how often it happened. The dying was never pleasant either, but the first breath of revival was a special pain compounded of ice and fire, the push of cold blood into pathways no longer numb, the knife-rush of air into aching, empty lungs, the claw and clamor of nerves reawakened at the height of sensitivity. And at the same time as the body was clamoring for air and movement and sustenance, the mind was grappling with renewal as well: was it safe, where was one, _who_ was one (what name, what history, what relationships …), how much time had passed, and a dozen, a hundred other things. Not to mention the little voice shouting over and over: "Alive! Alive! I live! I live!" to the distraction of establishing all those pressing and immediate questions of safety, time, place and identity. 

The older one got, the more practiced at the peculiar art of revival from transitory death, as one became more practiced at taking Quickenings, but it never became easy, or simple, or less than distressing. And the first breath on awakening to life again was always, always agony.


End file.
